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Networks' Apparent Open Season on PVR Owners
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Posted by: EchoBravo

Here we go again. I was watching Law & Order: SVU live just now. In light of Thursday night's time-shifting shenanigans on NBC, I was interested in seeing how SVU would be handled tonight. Especially since it seems they only F with the popular shows.

Anyway, as could be predicted, it started early. About :40 - 1:00 early, I would estimate. By the time the red light came on, this week's body had already been uncovered.

<sigh> Remember when stuff used to come on at the top of the hour and go off at :58 or so?

I know my singular protest won't matter, but I'm just cancelling Season Passes for any show that screws me out of its ending because the network shifted it a minute or two.

Not being a hard-ass, if that's even possible here, but as I said before in another thread, there's not a show on TV that's indespinsible or irreplaceable. Screw 'em!
___________________

Another annoyance: Local news stations jumping in early for the late-news. They cut-off the credits and next week's promos, so they can suck you into their "news" :30 earlier. I'm guessing if the network knew this (CBS .. Phoenix, anyone?), they'd have a problem with it.

Posted by: ncsercs

I live in Chicago. My SVU on 5 seconds early (as usual).

Last night, since I record both Scrubs and ER, I didn't miss anything.

Posted by: GoodSpike

quote:
Originally posted by EchoBravo
[B]Not being a hard-ass, if that's even possible here, but as I said before in another thread, there's not a show on TV that's indespinsible or irreplaceable. Screw 'em!

This is sort of the reason I haven't bought an HDTV to watch HDTV shows. They aren't that important.

BTW, I assume you do realize that you can set the season pass to start early and end late. That can, however, create problems when you have other things that need to be recorded the next hour which are not on the same channel.

Posted by: feldon23

Now TNN is in the act, running Star Trek TNG episodes from :02 to :02 and providing inaccurate guide data for the Star Trek movies.

When is TiVo going to add automatic soft padding of 2-5 minutes on all recordings? MS introduced this feature 2 years ago next February.

Posted by: GoodSpike

quote:
Originally posted by feldon23
When is TiVo going to add automatic soft padding of 2-5 minutes on all recordings? MS introduced this feature 2 years ago next February.

I'd hate that myself. Auto padding of the end wouldn't bother me as much as padding the beginning.

How does it handle it when you are recording something the next hour (or two things if it's dual tuner is turned on)?

Posted by: Maui

quote:
Originally posted by feldon23
Now TNN is in the act, running Star Trek TNG episodes from :02 to :02 and providing inaccurate guide data for the Star Trek movies.

When is TiVo going to add automatic soft padding of 2-5 minutes on all recordings? MS introduced this feature 2 years ago next February.

Would that not just screw things up worse if you are watching two programs back to back on separate networks? For example I would not want a 2 minute pad on Scrubs if it means missing 2 minutes of CSI

Posted by: dmaneyapanda

he's advocating a soft pad - it gets added if you're not recording something else at that time. also, to prevent you from being annoyed by having to fast forward through 2 minutes of that last show (for those rare shows that actually do start and end on time), many people believe that you should start at the 0 point, but have the ability to rewind back X minutes of soft pad if needed.

dinesh

Posted by: JYoung

quote:
Originally posted by EchoBravo
Here we go again. I was watching Law & Order: SVU live just now. In light of Thursday night's time-shifting shenanigans on NBC, I was interested in seeing how SVU would be handled tonight. Especially since it seems they only F with the popular shows.

Anyway, as could be predicted, it started early. About :40 - 1:00 early, I would estimate. By the time the red light came on, this week's body had already been uncovered.

Hmmm, in Los Angeles, my recording of SVU started five seconds before the show started so I got the whole "In the criminal justice system..." intro. In SVU's case, I don't think it's so much the network as the Phoenix affiliate.
ER, however, does routinely start early but I've found that a 1 minute pad catches it. That's a very common complaint and sounds like the network's at it...

Posted by: murgatroyd

My fave is the Monday night syndicated run of CSI's first season on TNN, which is scheduled to start at 11:05 after wrestling and regularly starts 5 minutes after that. I've given up and padded the end by 15 minutes.

Anyway, I don't know why we keep complaining about this. The networks are interested in the people who are actually watching. We recording weenies aren't viewers to them. Why should they care when I work late and don't get home in time to watch their stuff? It's just too bad.

It's obvious that they are trying any trick possible to keep people from channel-flipping. They want us to start out the evening watching their shows and to keep watching them all night long. Staggering the shows like NBC is doing, so that when the show you're watching is over everything else is halfway done, is supposed to foil your desire to change and watch somewhere else.

Unfortunately, none of these guys have figured out the simplest way to hook us and keep us watching, which is to buy quality programming and put it on when we can find it. :(

Jan

Posted by: Maui

quote:
Originally posted by EchoBravo
Here we go again. I was watching Law & Order: SVU live just now. In light of Thursday night's time-shifting shenanigans on NBC, I was interested in seeing how SVU would be handled tonight. Especially since it seems they only F with the popular shows.

Anyway, as could be predicted, it started early. About :40 - 1:00 early, I would estimate. By the time the red light came on, this week's body had already been uncovered.

I just checked my L&O SVU and it started right on time for me. I got about 4 or 5 seconds of station promo and then the Big Law and Order logo appeared on the screen.

Maybe the Tivo clock was off or a local affiliate didn't fill all their time?

Posted by: JimSpence

Network? What's a network?

Posted by: Worf

quote:
Originally posted by murgatroyd
Unfortunately, none of these guys have figured out the simplest way to hook us and keep us watching, which is to buy quality programming and put it on when we can find it. :(

There's quality programming on TV?!

Funny, all the shows I watch that qualify (to me) as "quality" seem to be cancelled within the first two episodes. Aside from the couple of hours of 'crap' programming I watch because I like it, I find it harder and harder to find a program worthwhile to watch.

Gotten to the point where I turn on the TV to ensure my TiVo's not screwing up (like its been doing a lot lately), rather than finding something to watch.

(As for the rescheduling, I think they did it to mess with PVR owners. After all, they are probably feeling threatened by them, but instead of lawsuits, have resorted to more interesting measures... )

Posted by: chroma601

It can't be just to screw with PVR owners. Most folks still tape on VHS, and an early start will screw that up too.

Posted by: Otto

Yeah, an automatic 2 minute soft pad would save me a whole lot of trouble. That's my most wanted feature right now.

Posted by: dmdeane

It's not just the PVR owners or the VCR users they are screwing; those who rely solely on the Mark 1 Eyeball are also screwed. Not everyone tunes into their favorite show five minutes early "just in case" the network decides to show it early.

Posted by: brianric

quote:
Originally posted by Worf
(As for the rescheduling, I think they did it to mess with PVR owners. After all, they are probably feeling threatened by them, but instead of lawsuits, have resorted to more interesting measures... )

60 Minutes became 75 minutes last night, after a delay of almost 40 minutes. Thank God I got a Tivo, Replay, and a Go Video VCR.

Posted by: Worf

Of course, I suppose, it helps when you set your clock to the station's clock...

but the main problem is that the station's clock doesn't match up with all the other station's clock...

Posted by: radio.joe

Just a comment from a future TiVo owner...

So TiVos don't do an automatic time set? Somehow I thought they did.

Also, the networks DO stick to the same time. They all sync to the atomic clock. Sure there's going to be a second or two difference, but in general they should be right on.

I just think the nets are starting shows at different times solely for the convenience of scheduling MORE commercials.

Just my thought, I could be wrong.

Joe

Posted by: feldon23

TiVos set their clock as the first step of each daily call.

I am not sure how (or how often) DirecTiVos determine the time. I assume this is done through the satellite.

Posted by: Maui

quote:
Originally posted by radio.joe
Just a comment from a future TiVo owner...

So TiVos don't do an automatic time set? Somehow I thought they did.

Also, the networks DO stick to the same time. They all sync to the atomic clock. Sure there's going to be a second or two difference, but in general they should be right on.

I just think the nets are starting shows at different times solely for the convenience of scheduling MORE commercials.

Just my thought, I could be wrong.

Joe

As Feldon says the Tivos do sync their own clocks

As for the more commercials thing I don't doubt that one bit. NBC is the perfect example of this. Friends has been scheduled at 32 minutes for several weeks now and er always seems to start a minute of so early so I have the feeling they are padding the high rated Friends and er with a few extra commercials

I still find it interesting, going back to the original post that they missed :40 to to 1:00 minute of the opening of L&O SVU while mine started right on the money.

Posted by: feldon23

I've never had schedule problems with Law & Orders.

Posted by: snoop

Theres a commercial aspect to this, and also as mentioned to keep viewers in there until some other show on another network has already started. Lets the network kill two competitive shows with one strong one.

But yeah, how do people without tivo's keep up with this show shifting? You get your sandwich and your beer and sit down at 8:00 to a show thats 2-3 minutes ahead already? Do the networks think we're all pavlovian enough to start sitting down ahead of time to watch this dreck?

Here's a fun observation though. I kicked Scrubs off my tivo because they not only time shift and 'stuporsize' it, but they run eps on different nights as well. My friend had it though, and we watched the 40 minute stuporsized version that ran last week. Show didnt start until :05 in and ended at :35...a standard 30 minute show with 10 extra minutes of commercials on each end. Nice.

Posted by: jasoncarr

quote:
Originally posted by dmaneyapanda
many people believe that you should start at the 0 point, but have the ability to rewind back X minutes of soft pad if needed.

Sounds like a plan to me. Seems there are a bunch of tweaks that TiVo could make that would take the product from great to teriffic.

Posted by: TiVo'Brien

Always pad ER one minute early, 9:59 p.m. if you want "previously, on ER"

Posted by: fedward

I'm surprised none of the UK regulars have come over here to point and laugh (or at least to raise a pint in sympathy). The BBC is notorious for this sort of thing.

I for one was pleased to see NBC be honest about Friends when it was at 32 minutes, but last week's 40 minute ep (with extra-long commercial breaks) got its end cut off. And FOX has started running the Simpsons a minute long on Sunday too (it used to be that it started a minute early). I lost the end of this week's ep because I forgot to record King of the Hill. No biggie since it'll be rerun, but still.

Posted by: Worf

Heheheeheheheheh. It's nicer when you tune your TiVo to the Canadian stations :). I noticed that FOX starts the simpsons early and ends late - the whole intro is over and a couple of ads play before the Canadian re-broadcast cuts in. Less ads that way too.

As for starting early, I guess they do it so they avoid the timeshifting crowd (who they don't get ratings from, etc), so they train on the people who already have the TV on or are about to watch TV, and turn it on early. Plus, makes the break between two shows shorter, so you can hook 'em rather than play filler ads (which can go inside the show).

Cute, though. Beats lawsuits, I say.